Your morning Briefing
Welcome to your morning roundup of what’s making news and the must-reads for today.
Good morning readers. Here is your two-minute digest of what’s making news today.
‘McCarthyism’ cries China
Australia’s ambassador to China has been called into the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a dressing down over the Turnbull government’s foreign interference laws amid accusations by Beijing that anti-China rhetoric is damaging the relationship. In a sign of the increasing tensions between the two governments, Jan Adams was officially summoned by Chinese officials on Friday. The Australian has also learned that China’s ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, on Monday made formal representations to the acting secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Penny Williams.
“This is not about any one country, it is simply about preserving our sovereignty.”
Malcolm Turnbull
Rowan Callick writes that China mouthpiece the Global Times newspaper has accused Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the US of McCarthyism, and says Chinese people with close ties to Westerners “would be treated like informants to Western spy agencies and be accused of treason, like Australian lawmaker Sam Dastyari”. Meanwhile, it has emerged that Linda Burney met with the same billionaire Chinese businessman behind the demise of Dastyari. David Uren suggests there is an element of overreaction from Canberra and cites a time when Malcolm Turnbull was seen to be an agent of foreign influence, as opposition spokesman for communications in 2012 when he had become close to senior executives of the Chinese telecommunications colossus Huawei.
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Kids cop Keneally crossfire
Kristina Keneally was showing the strain of the battle for Bennelong yesterday, labelling Malcolm Turnbull a “fool” who had “nothing to offer” and chiding a former media colleague who questioned Labor’s “Mediscare” attack. But as the by-election race entered its final days, it seemed Ms Keneally’s team was generating its own share of anger among the residents of the northwestern Sydney electorate who have endured weeks of saturation political campaigning. Furious parents at Melrose Park Public School in the electorate this week complained to police and Ryde Council when Keneally campaigners “accosted” children with pamphlets as they walked into school on Tuesday.
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NBN drops prices
The National Broadband Network will cut its wholesale prices to encourage internet users to upgrade to faster connections, in a desperate bid to restore confidence in the troubled project. In the biggest concession yet that its model of selling expensive “bandwidth” is flawed, NBN Co said it would offer telcos new top-speed NBN packages at discounts of up to 27 per cent.
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Trouble in Toorak
It all seemed so perfect from the outside looking in. But all has not been well behind the soaring colonnade facade of rich-lister property developer Harry Stamoulis’s $70 million-plus Toorak mansion, Margin Call reveals.
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The Ashes: Poms put out fire with gasoline
It was never going to require much for this England team to go from a state of slight smouldering to the appearance of a full-fledged dumpster fire, writes Gideon Haigh on the eve of the crucial third Test in Perth. There was too much fuel lying round; too many potential combustions; too many observers, perhaps, unconsciously willing it on. All it took was the combined influence of two Bens, neither of whom will feature in the Ashes, for Australians to be dissolved into fits of laughter.
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Kudelka’s view
China’s great wall of silence
China deliberately concealed information about the coronavirus, and now it is fighting an inquiry. So what is Beijing hiding?
Your noon Briefing
Your 2-minute digest of the day’s top stories.